Although pants for women did not become fashionable until late in the 20th century, currently, pants, and more specifically jeans are commonly worn by women. Indeed jeans have become quite stylish and feminine and are designed to not only cloth the wearer, but to enhance the shape of the wearer's body. Despite the many different styles and types of jeans, no jeans currently available in the marketplace have a seam that allows two parts of the jeans, such as a buttock portions, to slidably move with respect to each other.
There have been developed a wide variety of different assemblies to facilitate the joining of objects or fabric swatches to one to another in the fashion industry. The most common type of permanent fastener in the fashion industry is a stitched seam. The stitched seam is the line where two or more layers of fabric are held together by threads or stitching. The stitched seam allows the clothing manufacturer join two flat swatches of fabric together to create a variety of clothing articles, including those with a form fitting shape.
The stitched seam is designed to securely fasten two swatches of fabric together and it essentially prohibits the two swatches from slidably moving against each other. As such, the swatches joined together by the stitched seam move together like they are the same swatch.
In addition to the permanent fastener of stitching, there are many types of fasteners that are designed to temporarily fasten swatches of fabric together, such as zippers, buckles, buttons, hooks, loops, pins, laces, snaps, and hook and eye. Many of these fasteners use the principle of male to female connection such that a male portion matingly engages with the female portion. However, in addition to the limitation that these fasteners are designed to only temporarily join the two swatches, the vast majority of these fasteners do not allow the swatches to slidably move opposite each other.
Regarding specific references that disclose a female to male connector for use with fabric that may be slidable, U.S. Pat. No. 1,719,856, issued to Sipe, U.S. Pat. No. 1,959,319, also issued to Sipe, U.S. Pat. No. 3,875,623, issued to Johnston, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,939,995, issued to Daus, disclose such a fabric joint connector. Although the above references disclose a fabric joint connector, importantly none of those references are directed towards, or even hint at, a permanent slidable fabric joint connector that replaces where a stitched seam would normally be in order to allow movement in a garment as it is worn by a user.
Regarding references that disclose a male and female rib connector that may be slidable, U.S. Pat. No. 5,187,843, issued to Lynch, disclose such a fastener. However, the Lynch fastener is not a permanent fastener and it is directed at a releasable interconnection of two large objects that are combined to cover an even larger area Importantly, the Lynch fastener is designed to be easily disengagable without sliding the two objects apart.
Despite the long existence of the various connectors and fasteners discussed above, there remains a need for a permanent connector that allows two pieces of fabric to slide opposite to each other and may be used in a pair of form fitting pants to enhance the look of the movement of the buttocks of the wearer.